“And if you don’t find anything and like the plane – would you then not buy it, because of a negative result of the financial check? I doubt it.”
—A good point.
Still, I bet crappy planes and crappy finances correlate!
You don’t have to agree. Anybody can get a credit check on you without you knowing.
Whether somebody has a criminal record is (in the UK) not legally possible, for a private individual, to find out. So it is of course possible but costs money – 3 figures last time I had to do it (20 years ago).
Of course a prebuy will not discover all potentially expensive items. For example somebody could write something in the logbooks which isn’t true, or leave out stuff. It could take a lot of checking to verify the logbooks, and may be impossible if flight entries (total hours, etc) need verification. I have read a number of UK AAIB reports in which this was reported (logbooks being basically fiction). This is relevant to not just lifed items (obviously) but also general engine condition (too many hours means one thing, too few hours means probable corrosion).
Planes with dodgy records are “OK” to keep flying so long as you are happy, but it can get picked up when you re-sell, or you or somebody does a registry transfer.
BTW, you receiving money via a notary doesn’t help you if the money was the proceeds of crime. The law around this is complicated and no doubt country-dependent. If I was buying from what I thought was a criminal, cleared funds in the bank is not much good.
And there is criminal activity in GA… Lots of it. I have seen many cases where a plane was “for sale”, viewable for some large fee (ostensibly to weed out time wasters) but the real owner knew nothing about it. The best one I recall was G-HOOD for which somebody was asking 10k to view it. This went on for years, because the real owner (at the time) was not responding to correspondence. I have loads of emails from prospective buyers asking me what I think of it 
So I think the original Q is good, but the value of the information is no more than a part of the picture, and perhaps one would be extra careful about the payment arrangements. I don’t know what one could do, however, if one knew the money is probably stolen. In the UK, you cannot keep the money. I think it’s different with a house.
Peter, not sure you’re right about being able to get a credit check on an individual these days without their permission (not legally anyway) due the data protection act.
If you are that way inclined, it could be a way of finding out how desperate they are and hence low balling the offer if they are skint (but that’s hardly cricket).
Personally I would forget about that and judge the plane its own merits, look at logs, get a pre buy then offer what the plane is worth to you.
From my retail banking days (quit banking in 1999), you can look at public data on anyone (CCJs and bankruptcy), but you couldn’t (then) look at their ‘credit rating’. By that I mean looking at the performance of their credit accounts
Personally I would forget about that and judge the plane its own merits, look at logs, get a pre buy then offer what the plane is worth to you.
Agree 100%. Anybody who knows about planes and what to look for will find the expensive stuff. Of course there’s always a chance you miss something, but such is life ;-) You just have to have a real specialist, like Jim Barker is one for Cirrus Aircraft. I organized a pre-buy by him for a friend who wanted to buy a SR22, and Jim really found every little detail that was wrong with the airplane. You actually save a LOT of money if you let somebody like Jim do a pre-buy for € 1000
You guys may be talking about different things here regarding “credit check”.
I know from personal experience that a US style credit check is impossible to do on a German for example. There is simply so much data protection in Germany. So you won’t find out anything.
Maybe the important difference is that in Germany you have a negative listing when you have defaulted already and continue to be in that state. But then you will not possess an aircraft in your own name that you may be trying to sell to anyone.
In the US a challenging financial situation will result in a lower credit score and doing a credit check usually refers to that. I assume in the UK the system is set up in a similar way.
So my €0,02 are: don’t try to apply concepts from one jurisdiction onto another …
Peter, not sure you’re right about being able to get a credit check on an individual these days without their permission (not legally anyway) due the data protection act.
This usually translates to having to pay more 
That’s why criminal records cost a lot. And they cost more if the person is well known.
I cannot believe Germany does not have a system where e. g. a private detective can get you stuff. Most of them are ex police so have contacts… This stuff is mainstream.
You would hire a private detective to find out about the financial situation of somebody selling an airplane???
